Notable former students

Carla Marín completed the Master's degree in Astrophysics, Particle Physics and Cosmology in 2012-2013, obtained a PhD in Physics at the University of Barcelona in 2018 and continued her career with two postdocs, first at the Laboratoire de l'Accélérateur Linéaire (Orsay, France). and later at CERN (European Council for Nuclear Research). Since 2021 she has been a lecturer at the University of Barcelona.

Her research is framed in high-energy experimental physics, with the aim of experimentally testing the Standard Model, the current theoretical framework that describes fundamental particles and their interactions. Despite describing the results of the experiments with high precision, this model is not capable of explaining all the phenomena we observe in nature, such as the asymmetry between matter and antimatter, and is therefore incomplete. Her research focuses on the study of the properties of particles formed by a b quark, using data from the LHCb experiment, one of the main ones at CERN, where she is currently responsible for the data acquisition system.

In 2022, she has received an ERC Starting Grant to carry out the CLIMB project, in which she will develop new data reconstruction, selection and analysis techniques to be able to study the decays of a b quark to a d quark and two leptons, which only take place one every 100 million disintegrations and are highly sensitive to the existence of possible new particles not known to date.

Former student of the Master in Astrophysics, Particle Physics and Cosmology at the Universitat de Barcelona, Marc del Alcázar i Julià, received the Second Price for the Best Final Bachelor’s Thesis (TFG) defended during the academic year 2021-2022. The award is offered for a final degree project (TFG) of a degree that has a high physics content, carried out by students from universities in Catalan-speaking countries.

He is now a predoctoral researcher at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB), working in the Gaia group.

Martínez, born in Barcelona, ​​has a doctorate in Planetary Sciences from the University of New Mexico (2021), a degree in Geology from the UAB (2013) and a master's degree in Astrophysics, Particle Physics and Cosmology from the University of Barcelona (2015). She won a European Mineralogical Union (EMU) scholarship to study Planetary Mineralogy at the University of Glasgow (2014) and is currently contracted with a Margarita Salas scholarship for her postdoctoral research at the UAB. In 2019 he received the Wiley Award at the 82nd annual meeting of the Meteoritical Society in Sapporo (Japan).

Núria Miret-Roig was awarded the MERAC 2022 prize to the best early-stage researcher for her doctoral thesis where she discovered around one hundred "free" planets that do not orbit a parent star. 

Currently, Núria is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Viena, where she maintains her collaboration with the Gaia group at the UB. 

Raimon Luna Perelló was awarded  in 2021 the XVII Premi Ramon Margalef second prize to the best scientific paper derived from a doctoral thesis read at the University of Barcelona in the last five years for his work  «Cosmic censorship violation in black hole collisions in higher dimensions».

Currently, Raimon is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Valencia.

Cristina Jiménez Palau was awarded the second Sant Jordi Prize 2021 for best Final Thesis for her work "Automated classification of stellar spectra" where she  analyzed the performance of a PCA-based automated classifier of stellar spectra.

Currently Cristina is a PhD student at the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC).

Clàudia Soriano Guerrero was awarded the Sant Jordi Prize 2021 for best Final Thesis for her work "Optimization of a discriminant to find charged Higgs boson in the ATLAS experiment" where she analyzed the optimization of the discriminant used in the separation of the H+ boson signal from the rest of the Standard Model processes.

At present, Clàudia is a PhD student at the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC) where she studies the large-scale evolution of the magnetic fields of exoplanets on the IMAGINE project.

Héctor Gil-Marín was awarded in 2020 the Young Reseacher in Theoretical Physics Prize from the BBVA Foundation for his work in the study of the accelerated expansion of the Universe, by analysing highly detailed mappings of the galaxy in international collaborations such as DESI, BOSS i eBOSS.

Currently, Héctor is a "Junior Leaders" researcher at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB).

Alba Cervera-Lierta was awarded the Teach Me QISKit prize to the best interactive tutorial on quantum computing for her initaitve "Exact Ising Model simulation: How to simulate time evolution at zero time" on 2018.

Currently, Alba is the coordinator of the Quantum Spain project to build the first quantum computer of the south of Europe at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-NSC).

Adrià Gómez-Valent was awarded the UB Extraordinary Doctoral Award in 2018 to the top graded thesis "Excellent Cum Laude" in that year's class for his work "Vacuum energy in Quantum Field Theory and Cosmology".

He has worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Heidelberg with a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and at the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. Adrià is currently a Junior Leader researcher at the ICCUB.

Ignasi Pérez-Ràfols was awarded the UB Extraordinary Doctoral Award in 2018 to the top graded thesis "Excellent Cum Laude" in that year's class for his work  "The cross-correlation among tracers of the underlying large-scale mass distribution in the universe".

Currently, Ignasi is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of High Energy Physics (IFAE) of the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

Javier Moldón-Vara was awarded the Prize to the Best Astrophysics Doctoral Thesis in 2012 given by the Spanish Society of Astronomy (SEA), and the UB Extraordinary Doctoral Award for his work "Structure and nature of gamma-ray binaries by means of VLBI observations" supervised by professors Josep M. Paredes and Marc Ribó.

Currently, Javier is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA).